crappy hand of haiku

Ah Bill Murray.  I never expected him to be such a muse.  As I've come to find out, Mr. Murray is a muse to many people as one of my Bills was featured in the Bill Murray Affair art show out in San Francisco.  I began this as an experiment for larger works.  I have some ideas floating around with people and words so I wanted to see what it would look like on a small scale.  I really wanted to dive into using oils on this one, but fear and money put that on the back burner.  I ended up using my good old gouache.  Its a weird and tricky medium to handle because on one hand you can add water later and create washes to blend colors, but adding water can sometimes pull the colors which can be frustrating if you were trying to blend things together.  I'm really interested in what I can do with some oil paints.  Its such a different process.  I've got alla prima at home to read and I want to do the chip chart exercise in the book on mixing colo...

Hey everyone, Whoo, its been a crazy summer.  While on a silent zen meditation retreat, I got the message that my painting, Lustashe Bill, got accepted into the Murray Affair, an art show dedicated to Bill Murray! I wish I could go, but at least I can send my work in my place!  Anyone interested the show will be August 8th!  Check out the details below! http://www.themurrayaffair.com/

So yesterday I posted my final illustration for Illustration Friday, but I also wanted to share the original sketch I drew for the project.  This is a little, well, alot more realistic version of the final image.  Now why didn't I finish this image as opposed the the more cartoony one?  I think it is because I am trying to get a grasp on a style that is my own.  I think there is an inclination (at least for me) to start off wanting to be realistic to show, at least to myself, that I can do it.  I also have a tendency to want to go in a million directions at once and the harder thing for me to do is buckle down and say this is the path I am walking on now.  Some people call it branding their style and artists and creative types probably don't want to box themselves in in that way.  They can be a photographer, a graphic designer, a film maker, an illustrator ( I write these because these are all skills that I have, yours might be a little different) but to be all of those things ...